{"id":21009,"date":"2022-02-25T17:11:45","date_gmt":"2022-02-25T17:11:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/?p=21009"},"modified":"2022-02-25T17:27:44","modified_gmt":"2022-02-25T17:27:44","slug":"former-left-bloc-partners-crushed-by-social-democratic-socialist-party-in-portuguese-elections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/2022\/02\/25\/former-left-bloc-partners-crushed-by-social-democratic-socialist-party-in-portuguese-elections\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Left Bloc partners crushed by (social democratic) Socialist Party in Portuguese elections"},"content":{"rendered":"

We are posting this article from Left Voice (USA)<\/a> translated from the one which first appeared in \u00a0IzquierdaDiario.es<\/a>. The Left Bloc (along with the Portuguese Communist Party) had joined a coalition with Antonio Costa’s Socialist Party in 2015. \u00a0The Left Bloc like Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain is an essentially Left social democratic party. Syriza, in government since December 2014, won a referendum mandate in July 2015 to defy the EU bureaucracy. \u00a0But it then capitulated and \u00a0took on responsibility for imposing Austerity. Syriza \u00a0was ousted from government by Right New Democracy in 2019. \u00a0Podemos, originally formed as a \u00a0Left \u00a0alternative to the Spanish (social democratic) Socialist Workers Party, \u00a0began to prop it up in 2015, and entered a full coalition in 2019. \u00a0During this period Catalan independence politicians and supporters remained in \u00a0jail. Podemos’ support has continued to decline. In Portugal, the Left Bloc, following its record in coalition of sharing responsibility for anti-worker reforms, the use of \u00a0the military to attack strikes, and bank bailouts, suffered a major defeat in the February 2022 general election. \u00a0And, as in Spain, the main \u00a0beneficiaries of mounting discontent with social democratic imposed Austerity has been the Far Right.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

FORMER LEFT BLOC PARTNERS CRUSHED BY (SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC) SOCIALIST PARTY IN PORTUGUESE ELECTIONS<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/a>Prime Minister Ant\u00f3nio Costa\u2019s Socialist Party (PS), in power since 2015, achieved an absolute majority in Portuguese legislative elections on Sunday. With 41.68 percent of the votes nationwide, the PS won 117 of the 230 parliamentary seats, nine more than in 2019. For Costa, it means a new four-year term.<\/p>\n

The other highlight of the day is the growth of the far Right. The Chega party, founded in 2019, consolidated its position as the third political force in Portugal, winning 7.15 percent of the vote and electing 12 deputies. The rise of this xenophobic, ultra-right party unfolds in parallel with the collapse of the neo-reformist Left forces, such as the Bloco de Esquerda (Left Bloc, commonly referred to as Bloco) and the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP), which lost enormous electoral weight after years of sustained support for Costa\u2019s social-liberal government.<\/p>\n

The front-page headline of the Portugal daily\u00a0P\u00fablico<\/em><\/a>\u00a0was \u201cAn Absolute Surprise Majority.\u201d Even Costa, prime minister since 2015, had in recent days ruled out that possibility given the polls that put the PS in a virtual tie with the PSD conservatives led by Rui Rio.[Translator\u2019s note: The Partido Social Democrata (PSD, Social Democratic Party) is actually a conservative neoliberal party in Portugal, not to be confused with the PS, which is the party of the world social-democratic movement embodied in the \u201cSocialist International.\u201d The PSD and PS are the two main political parties in the country.]<\/p>\n

Another daily,\u00a0Di\u00e1rio de Not\u00edcias<\/em><\/a>, ran \u201cABSOLUTE\u201d as its front-page headline, along with a photo of Costa celebrating the victory with his upraised arm. For its part, the weekly\u00a0Expresso<\/em><\/a>\u00a0explains that the 117 deputies won by the PS (four seats remain to be allotted pending overseas votes being counted) elevates Costa\u2019s showing to the \u201cfourth-best\u201d by a Socialist Party slate in Portugal\u2019s history. It is the second time that the PS has achieved an absolute majority in a legislative election.<\/p>\n

The most notable thing is that while the PS is celebrating its triumph, its former partners in the \u201cLeft\u201d government are sunk. Bloco fell to five seats from 19, and the Communists went from 10 to six.<\/p>\n

In 2015, Bloco and the PCP reached an agreement with Costa that allowed the PS to govern although it hadn\u2019t won a parliamentary majority that year \u2014\u00a0an agreement that came to be known as the\u00a0jerigonza\u00a0<\/em>[a Portuguese word used to describe something unprecedented and amazing, complex, and difficult to understand]. The \u201coutside\u201d support of the reformist Left was key for Costa to achieve two consecutive terms as the head of the government.<\/p>\n

Sunday\u2019s early elections were called at the end of 2021 after the breakup of the left-wing bloc in the vote on the country\u2019s general budget. Costa bet on asking for early elections as a way to achieve an absolute majority for the PS. Now he will be able to govern without needing the support of his former left-wing partners.<\/p>\n

Bloco leader Catarina Martins declared after the votes were counted that the results were \u201cbad\u201d for her party and blamed the prime minister for \u201ccreating an artificial crisis to achieve an absolute majority.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe vote was used to penalize the left-wing parties,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

In reality, though, what has \u201cpenalized\u201d the parties of Portugal\u2019s reformist Left has been their support for two consecutive terms for the Costa government, which has implemented anti-worker reforms, used the military to attack strikes, and bailed out the banks. Now, seeking to achieve some sort of post-pandemic economic recovery, center-left voters have chosen to support the government and not those who played along with it for so many years.<\/p>\n

As a counterpart, the far-right Chega party has grown into the country\u2019s third-largest political force? What explains this change in the electoral scenario? The growing social discontent with the Costa government has been channeled by the far Right in a reactionary way \u2014\u00a0an opportunity created by the subordination of the neo-reformist Left forces to the social democratic government.<\/p>\n

The Portuguese experience is a mirror in which Spanish neo-reformism can also be seen. The latest polls in the Spanish State show a persistent decline of\u00a0Unidas Podemos<\/a>\u00a0\u2014\u00a0the alliance formed by Podemos, United Left, and other left-wing parties \u2014\u00a0while the far right-wing VOX party is growing. The policy of alliances with the social liberals to \u201cstop the Right,\u201d as all the neo-reformists advocated, has given rise to nothing more or less than the growth of these reactionary forces.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a key lesson for the entire left, worldwide.<\/p>\n

1.2.22<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

_________<\/p>\n

also see:<\/p>\n

A very capitalist coup – World to Win<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We are posting this article from Left Voice (USA) translated from the one which first appeared in \u00a0IzquierdaDiario.es. The Left Bloc (along with the Portuguese Communist Party) had joined a coalition with Antonio Costa’s Socialist Party in 2015. \u00a0The Left Bloc like Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain is an essentially Left social democratic…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1843,1867,1854,1847,18],"tags":[8334],"class_list":["post-21009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-how-capitalists-organise","category-emancipation-liberation-and-self-determination","category-the-left-crisis","category-the-eu","category-political-campaigns","tag-author-left-voice"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"views":1926,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21009"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21009\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21017,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21009\/revisions\/21017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}